A media player typically describes computer software used for playing back various audio and video multimedia files on both stand-alone computing devices and on computing devices connected to a network, such as the Internet. Designers of these media players attempt to tailor the user interface and functionality of their software applications according to various design preferences specified by their customers, who are either the hosts or users of these customized media players.
Today, many media players are designed to be embedded in various data displays, such as web pages, electronic programming guides, and other mobile software applications creating graphical compositions. The data display platforms associated with these embedded media players can include specialized scripting which calls for a media player application resident on a host or client side, for dynamically embedding the player in a particular data display. Adobe AIR™ platforms such as Flash™ (previously Shockwave Flash, SWF) and Flash Lite™ are examples of commonly used platforms for embedding multimedia content such as streaming video and audio into web pages. These Adobe platforms utilize the ActionScript™ scripting language to create embedded content that is capable of playing SWF (.swf) and Flash Video (.flv) data formats. Other platforms that facilitate embedding media applications in various web based data displays include: Adobe FIex™, Microsoft Silverlight™, and Sun Microsystems JavaFX™, and open source GNU/Linux platforms such as Moonlight™.
Whether a media player is designed as a stand-alone software application to be independently executed on a local computing device or whether a media player is designed to be dynamically embedded in a web-based data display, the goal of the software designer remains the same: to custom tailor a media player to best meet a given customer's needs and preferences. Unfortunately, at present, a media player customer who desires specialized characteristics and functionality in their media player (either at the time of creation or as a subsequent modification), has to submit these custom specifications to a software designer for reprogramming, recompiling, and redistribution of a static media player application. This redesign process is inefficient, time intensive, and unnecessarily expensive for most media player customers and applications.
To remedy the above inefficiencies, it would be advantageous to facilitate easy real-time creation and modification of custom designed media players.